Weight lifting exercises are often performed with a barbell. A barbell includes an elongated grip bar that is long enough for a user to grip the central portion of the grip bar with both hands. The bar when so gripped is also long enough to extend horizontally and laterally outside of or beyond the shoulders of the user, i.e. the bar has a length that is substantially longer than the shoulder width of the user. A selected number and/or size of weights can be loaded onto each of the ends of the bar such that a desired total exercise mass is provided by the barbell. The user may then lift and lower the barbell to perform different types of exercises, such as a bench press, a squat, etc.
Various types of free standing or wall mounted frames are known in the art for supporting the grip bar of the barbell while the ends of the grip bar are being loaded or unloaded with the desired weights. Such frames are also used to hold or support a fully loaded barbell to allow the user to rack the barbell onto the frame or cage at the end of a set of weight lifting repetitions. This allows the user to rest and recover before beginning the next set of repetitions. This also allows the user a convenient place to rack the barbell in the event the user is not physically able to complete the current set of repetitions.
Such frames usually have at least one pair of spaced, parallel uprights that extend vertically over a significant length, i.e. 8 to 12 feet tall. In some frames known in the art as power cages, there are two pairs of spaced, parallel uprights arranged at the four corners of a square or rectangular configuration. One pair of uprights in such a frame usually carries a series of vertically spaced holes along at least one side of each upright in the pair with the holes extending along most of the vertical length of each upright. In many cases, the holes in each upright are carried on two opposite sides of each upright rather than just on one side. The holes are spaced apart at substantially equal intervals relative to one another, i.e. at intervals of 3 to 4 inches from one another.
The holes in the uprights of this pair of uprights often carry a bar support on each upright such that the grip bar of the barbell may be dropped down onto the pair of bar supports to rack the barbell on the frame. Many conventional bar supports have a horizontal mounting pin that extends through a first hole in one side of an upright, through the open interior of the upright, and then out through a corresponding hole in the opposite side of the upright to releasably connect one bar support to the upright. The height at which the barbell is racked on the frame is adjustable by picking different vertical elevations for the pair of holes in the uprights that are used to carry the pair of bar supports. When a pair of bar supports is mounted in the fashion described above to each upright in the pair of uprights, the laterally spaced bar supports will have upwardly facing cradles in which the grip bar of the barbell is retained when the barbell in lowered down into engagement with the bar supports. Such bar supports are often referred to as J-bar rests or J-bar cups.
In known weight lifting frames used to support barbells, the uprights are typically formed of a plurality of hollow steel tubes provided as single pieces having a length equal to the desired height of the frame. When the frames are 8 to 12 feet tall, the tubes that form the uprights are cut into the lengths equal to the desired height, i.e. the tubes will also be 8 to 12 feet tall. This poses various packing and shipping problems. For example, a single weight lifting frame might be packaged and shipped in a cardboard box or carton that might be four feet wide, twelve feet long, but only ten inches high. This encourages freight companies to pack other heavy loads on top of such a vertically short carton, thereby causing damage to the components of the weight lifting frame carried inside the carton including denting or bending the steel tubes. Such damage is obviously undesirable as either the manufacturer or the freight company is liable for replacing any damaged components.
It would be an advance in the art to provide a weight lifting frame that could be shipped in a carton that would have be shorter in length and taller in height, thereby having a more uniform appearance along the width, length and height dimensions, to decrease the incidence of shipping damage. However, the components of such a weight lifting frame carried in such a carton when assembled should provide substantially the same degree of strength and rigidity as a traditional frame in which the uprights are formed as one piece tubes and also allow the bar supports to be adjustably coupled to the uprights in the usual manner.